Evangelical Christianity has been under repeated attack on the TV networks in the UK over the last couple of months.

In December 2005, we had Lord Robert Winston on BBC1, with his The Story of God. Winston had three hours in which to broadcast his personal philosophy that ideas about God had evolved over the centuries. He made sure that he took plenty of time to criticise Christians who believe the Bible to be true, and exhibit A for him was the Creation Museum being built by our sister AiG ministry in Northern Kentucky, USA. (See The Story of God—a review of part one and The Story of God—An Overview.)

Dawkins’s The Root of all Evil?

In early January, we had atheist Prof. Richard Dawkins on Channel 4 telling us why we should all be atheists. His two one-hour documentaries were entitled The Root of All Evil? (see our review). While his programmes opposed all types of religious faith, he spent most of his time criticising Bible-believing Christians.

At the end of January 2006, Dawkins popped up again on TV, this time on BBC2 along with David Attenborough, in a highly biased documentary pretending to analyse the Intelligent Design Movement, but in actuality the programme ended up doing a hatchet job on it.

When one considers the one-sided documentaries attacking biblical Christianity, how many programmes do you suppose there have been on the UK’s main networks made from a biblical point of view? How often have creationists been able to present the truth of the Genesis account of creation? I will give you a clue. It’s a ‘round’ number!

UK public do not believe evolution

Despite all the intense media propaganda, and despite the fact that evolution has been taught in school biology to the exclusion of all other theories for decades in the UK’s government-run schools, apparently only 48% of the British public actually believe evolution, according to an Ipsos MORI poll conducted for the BBC, published on 26th January 2006.1 Conversely, 17% said they believed in intelligent design, with 22% saying they believed in creation. The remainder did not know. Displaying his usual venom toward biblical Christianity, Dawkins said of the evolution-unbelievers: ‘These ignorant people would probably welcome enlightenment’. Of course, no one can consider themselves truly wise unless they have accepted all their opinions from evolution’s high priest himself!

Evolution does not seem, after all, to be a very convincing theory for Britons!

The statistic of 22% believing in creation is interesting. It is unlikely that all 22% believe in the exact Genesis account, especially as this number is far higher than the estimated 8.5% who are evangelical Christians in the UK,2 but it must include a significant number of evangelicals who are in churches led by pastors who compromise on the book of Genesis.

Let’s put this 22% into context. Children are taught that evolution is fact from being very young. Pastors and ministers tell the children who attend church (a small minority of all young in the country) that they can believe evolution and just add it to the Bible. Bible college students in so-called ‘evangelical’ colleges are taught to ‘harmonise’ the Bible with evolution.

The popularisers of science such as Attenborough, Dawkins and Winston, who are aware of the distressing poll numbers, continue to hammer home the same message from our television sets with increasing intensity.

Meanwhile, genuinely evangelical Christians, who believe all of the Bible from the very first verse, are rarely given publicity (or, as with the case of Lord Winston’s programme, they are instead mocked). Yet less than half of the public believe evolution! Evolution does not seem, after all, to be a very convincing theory for Britons!

An evangelistic ministry

It is not our ministry, however, to convince people only to accept that God created the world. We are an evangelistic ministry. We teach creation, because we know it is the issue on which the Bible is most often attacked. Genesis is also the book which is the foundation of all our beliefs. We are sinners in need of a Saviour, because of Adam’s sin. The truth and authenticity of Genesis is fundamental to our understanding of the gospel. This is the message that we want to broadcast, and with your help and support, we will be able to reach more and more people with the life-changing creation/gospel message.

The strategy of ‘creation evangelism’ adopted by Answers in Genesis can now be seen to be not only theologically correct, but also strategically appropriate, as Christians seek to bring the gospel to this needy land of ours, where once so many used to know and love God in days gone by. However hard our opponents peddle their propaganda and try to silence us, we should always remember that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).